[RESOLVED] Record pagination issue

Mechaworx

I am trying to set up a record pagination system for my home page it does work but not quite how I would like it to.

I would like to have a user enter www.mydomain.com/index.php and have the first five records display and the navigation start from there. But I have to declare a starting point so I did the following:

$records = $_GET['records'];

This is my problem, I need to have the "records" as part of the URL or else I get a notice

Notice: Undefined index: records in C:\wamp\www\phpPractice\index2.php on line 9

However, I can't think of any other way of making this work.

I have posted the relevant code.

//determine the number of records to be displayed per page
$per_page = 5;

//variable in order to declare a starting point 
$records = $_GET['records'];

//Count the records in the database
$record_count = mysql_num_rows(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM myblogposts"));

//if the index.php page is found through a search engine set the starting point as below
if (!$records) {
	$records = 0;
}
    $sqlCommand = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM myblogposts ORDER BY reported_date DESC LIMIT $records, $per_page");
	//now loop through all data 
	$blogPage = '';//this declares a compound variable for posting content to the html page
	while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($sqlCommand)){
	$id = $row['bpid'];
	$title = $row['title'];
	$pic = $row['picURL'];
	$picAlt = $row['picALT'];
	$picTitle = $row['picTitle'];
	$content = $row['article_body'];
	$date = $row['reported_date'];
	$category = $row['catid'];

//set up page navigation
$prev = $records - $per_page;
$next = $records + $per_page;

if (!($records <=0)) { //show previous button but show nothing if on the first page
	//declare variable and echo below to html page
		echo '<a href="index2.php?records='.$prev.'">Prev</a> ';
 	}

//set variable for first page and show page numbers in a for loop  

$i = 1;
for ($x=0; $x < $record_count; $x=$x + $per_page)
{
	echo ' <a href="index2.php?records='.$x.'">' .$i. '</a>';
	$i++;
}

if (!($records >=$record_count - $per_page)) {//show next button but show nothing if on the last page
//declare variable and echo below to html page
	echo '<a href="index2.php?records='.$next.'"> Next</a>';
}

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Gerry

bradgrafelman

Mechaworx wrote:
This is my problem, I need to have the "records" as part of the URL or else I get a notice

Notice: Undefined index: records in C:\wamp\www\phpPractice\index2.php on line 9

However, I can't think of any other way of making this work.

You should never reference external data without first verifying that it exists by using a function such as [man]isset/man or [man]empty/man.

For example, I would write this line:

$records = $_GET['records'];

like so:

$records = (isset($_GET['records']) ? $_GET['records'] : NULL);

Where NULL could be replaced with any default value you see fit.

Mechaworx

Ah!

Thanks, I figured I needed something like that but couldn't quite figure out how to code it. I'm very new to php.

Big thanks bradgrafelman.

Gerry